


Fish Happiness

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-29
Updated: 2011-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-18 19:30:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They don't want to rewrite history but they have their private jokes</i>. Written April 2009.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fish Happiness

There is a kind of happiness that is sensible to the touch. That kind is particular to the trout or the minnow on the days where it rains over the river. It's an epidermis joy. Cellular mirth.

That kind is the one that concerns Roy and Hawkeye this morning.

Physical nakedness is the least important one right now, the least remarkable thing about this moment. There's a feeling of _finally_ that's not just about bodies, limbs, skin. They are just content that each other's secret is out. There are questions, but happy ones. There's curiosity -when did you know? when did I know? did I make you suffer? did you notice it in me? when?-, a lover's prerogative. They don't regret the years lost because they are really years gained; they don't try to rewrite history, because it has cost them far too much, the story as it is now.

But there are jokes.

There's the embarrassment and pleasure of “if our young selves could see us now”. They play games of _what if_ and they pretend each was the first one to _know_. Like Mark Antony and Cleopatra, but getting it right.

In retrospect yes, I was in love with the shy daughter of my teacher, he says. In retrospect yes, I was smitten with my father's pupil, she replies. Truth is she was Riza for too long, in his youth, like a glass door so clean you go straight through it. Truth is, her crush on the dark-haired stranger in her house lasted for two days, so young was she, until he became something else, something comforting like cool balm over new burns. Love came later, slowly, heavy, inescapable.

They tease each other about it – the subtle curve of their affections.

They rejoice in everybody else's ignorance. The assumptions. Roy brushes wild hair off her face, pure morning sunlight. And here everybody thought I was a womanizer, he scolds. Hawkeye draws the line of his mocking brow. I knew better. They kiss, for the hundredth time, for the first time, blurred lines, time cheated and upstaged.

I was hoping you knew better, yes.


End file.
